Orange Line Extension to Roslindale/West Roxbury

[The EGE]

As a point of comparison: when the Highland Branch was converted from commuter rail to streetcars, ridership increased by a factor of 10.

Looking at surrounding density, three stops (Newton Upper Falls post-Northland, Needham Heights, Needham Center) have land use very similar to Newton Centre and Newton Highlands. I would expect their ridership to be similar - ~1,500 to 2,000 daily boardings each, versus the ~200 currently, especially if Needham is willing to densify around its stops. Needham Junction and TV Place wouldn't be quite as strong, maybe 500-1,000 daily each. So off the cuff, you're talking 5k-8k boardings daily, or 10-15k total.

So no, I think that Newton study is pretty reasonable, especially if the cities are willing to do some (very moderate) densification around the stations.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

FWIW...the PMT also lowballed their OLX projections. So reading the Needham CR corridor and associated buses was definitely not the document's strong suit. Practically all of OLX was diversions from CR, bus, and Forest Hills with only an anemic +600 new transit riders for 10,700 existing-rider diversions. And that was with a nonspecific crayon-placeholder 128 stop absorbing most of Hersey's Pn'R audience, no VFW Parkway stop, and super-curiously no Bellevue rapid transit stop at all to make consolidating the bus routes any easier. It's baffling that you couldn't find more than 600 new transit riders in Boston's two highest car-ownership neighborhoods of them all plus at one of the system's would-be highest-frequency (if, as noted, thinly crayoned) highway Pn'R stops.

It's not like the document had its finger on the scale for everything it evaluated. It did peg some very robust ridership and new-ridership generation on many other studied proposals, both urban and suburban. Enough that its overall 'hit' rate has held up to scrutiny over time and that its overall priority pecking order of high-leverage projects still resonates. But it really seemed to choke on analyzing certain corridors over others, and with density analyses at certain specifically mid-level densities. The Needham CR corridor and accompanying buses were ones it really didn't seem to read well at all. Like, the near-complete absence of credible math on frequency increases above current conditions and superduper lowballed new-transit riders vs. surrounding density calculations leaves really massive gaps in the analysis. I'd love to see the current OLX talk turn very soon into a full-on detailed commissioned feasibility study, because I bet we'll get a similar shocker as the City of Newton GLX study for how much better the projections look vs. the PMT when looked at through the correct density lens.